


Semper Fi

by xsnarksthespot



Series: The Ringleader, The Sniper, and The Brute [1]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Zombies, Angst, Crossover, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Inappropriate Humor, M/M, Possible Pre-OT3, Violence, What Have I Done
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-04
Updated: 2014-04-04
Packaged: 2018-01-18 03:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1413130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xsnarksthespot/pseuds/xsnarksthespot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern AU crossover with The Walking Dead: Athos, Aramis and Porthos are reunited in brutal fashion (and how it all began).</p><p>
  <i>The first walker they killed was wearing a sheriff’s uniform.  It knocked Porthos to the ground, scrambling and snarling and snapping its teeth, raining pieces of God-knows-what down upon his chest. Porthos shoved it upwards with a shaking hand forcefully jammed up under its jaw.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“<i>Shield your face</i>!” Aramis shouted, panicked but still raising his gun with all the steady aim his training instilled. As quickly as Porthos turned his head and closed his eyes, Aramis put a bullet through the walker’s skull and raced over to heave the corpse off of his friend.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“So much for serve and protect,” Porthos growled.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Semper Fi

**Author's Note:**

> Oookay, so I was just minding my own business, thinking about how happy I was that the Holy Trinity was back together on The Walking Dead and that led to obsessing about my other favorite trio on tv right now and what it would be like if they were stuck in a zombie apocalypse.
> 
> This is mostly set-up (current time mixed with apocalyptic beginnings flashbacks) and I have a list of scenes I definitely want to add to this series, but they may not be in any particular order. d'Artagnan and Constance will definitely be around, and likely some of the others as well. To keep things realistic, I've traded out Musketeers for Marines, but they'll probably still end up on horseback at some point. Lalala, I don't even know what I'm doing, but whatever. I hope someone enjoys this grim ridiculousness.

Blood and bits of flesh carve a meandering path from Athos’ beard down into the collar of his shirt and beyond. 

It’s not his.

The man is a crumpled heap on the ground, his life still pumping visibly from his jugular even though he’s already gone from this world. Athos finds out later that his name was Gallagher, or at least that’s the name he gave Porthos, but it doesn’t matter right now. All that matters is that Aramis is burying a knife up and into the jaw of the last man standing. The man who's twitching and making strangled gurgling sounds. The man who had Aramis pinned to the ground only moments before. 

All that matters is that Porthos is on the other side of the rusted out Ford Thunderbird and he’s managed to crack in the skulls of his two attackers with only his bare fists and the hard point of his elbow. 

All that _matters_ is that they’re together again. d’Artagnan is still lost to them, and Constance, but if Porthos survived the prison, maybe they did too. Maybe this hopeless agony he’s been carrying around for two weeks isn’t the end of it all.

They’ll never get it back, obviously. What they had for a few precious months there, that’s gone. But if Athos has learned anything in this apocalyptic world, it’s how to be grateful in the quiet moments.

Even with bodies at his feet. 

Aramis slides the knife home a few too many times, but then his eyes are on Porthos across the hood of the car, watching him stumble to his knees with blood on his hands and pain in his eyes. Aramis makes a wordless noise as he lets the dead man fall to the ground. Four long strides and he’s sinking to his knees too, his gentle medic hands grazing over Porthos with a reverence that borders on sacrilege for a man once so devout. Maybe he still is in some ways. He’s murmuring the Act of Contrition in the same broken voice he’s been saying it in for days.

“ _O, my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee--_ ”

“Aramis.” It’s barely uttered, but Aramis caves in on himself, burying his face against Porthos’ throat as his arms wrap crushingly around the man’s neck. A strong arm winds around Aramis just as tightly, cradling the back of his head as Porthos murmurs soothing words against his ear. Athos hesitates to join them, even as his heart constricts in his chest and his legs are aching to move. 

But Porthos lifts his eyes, a grim smile twisting one corner of his mouth as he meets Athos’ gaze with a pleading one of his own, and that’s all it takes for indecision to crumble. When Athos kneels with them, Porthos threads a hand into his hair and pulls him forward to press forehead to forehead.

Athos has rarely been a man of unguarded displays of emotion, beyond momentary flashes of righteous anger or blatant self-hatred, but in this moment, with relief coming off of Aramis in trembling waves between them and the soothing scrape of Porthos’ fingers in his hair, Athos closes his eyes and sinks into them. 

“You’re late,” he mumbles. The crack in his voice betrays his forced stoicism, but Porthos still laughs. It’s a brief, quiet rumble of sound, joyfully grim if there is such a thing, but it envelopes the two men in his arms and almost erases the last fifteen days without him at their side. 

Almost.

\-----

The end of the world started Memorial Day weekend. There was something sadly poetic about that. 

It was the first time in two years they’d managed to get a week’s leave, all three of them at the same time. They headed down to Georgia, to visit Porthos’ old stomping grounds, maybe meet the girl he’d only willingly mentioned in passing and clammed up about the rest of the time. All they knew was she went by Flea and they ran the streets of Atlanta together until Porthos turned eighteen and immediately offered up his blood and bones to the United States Marine Corps.

They obviously didn’t realize they’d chosen Georgia as the place they’ll spend the rest of their lives, however long that might be.

There were reports on the news about a sickness killing people by the hundreds, but they didn’t know about that either because Porthos was showing them the strip club he used to sneak into at fourteen and the abandoned apartment complex just down the road that he squatted in for two years.

They never did catch up with Flea, or the other one, Charon. Porthos said his name like it was both good and bad so Aramis didn’t press and Athos turned back to the television where the news anchor was looking pale and confused.

The shit level exponentially rose after that, but it still took time to figure out exactly how bad things were. There were crazy stories about the dead rising and lines of people everywhere they went, but they’re Special Forces for fuck’s sake, so they shouldered through the chaos like synchronized swimmers. The airport was packed and the bus stations started turning people away. They managed to rent a car before everything _really_ fell apart. 

Before there was napalm in the streets and a neon sky. That was still a few weeks away.

Still, they never did make it back to Fort Lejeune. 

\-----

The guy with the gun at the gas station outside of Atlanta was just desperate because his five year old daughter had a fever of a hundred and four, but they _couldn’t possibly_ know that. They didn’t know a lot of things at that point.

But they did know that Athos took a bullet in the side and dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.

“It’s bad, Porthos…” 

“Alright, okay. Aramis, look at me. _Look at me_. We’ve got this. S’gonna be okay.”

It was a long time before anything was really “okay” again. And even then, the definition of the word had changed until it was hardly recognizable anymore.

\-----

When a National Guard team rolled through the hospital putting bullets in damn near everything that moved, Porthos pulled his head back from the crack in the door and shut it as quietly as he could. Aramis didn’t have to ask. The look on Porthos’ face was enough. They’d seen things in the last two weeks that even their soldiers’ eyes could never unsee.

But they were ready for this. They were on the ground floor and the car was parked five blocks away from the parking lot, too full of cars by half now. Porthos had already filled the trunk with whatever supplies he could scrape together. They’d have to find guns and ammo later. Right then, Porthos had his knives and Aramis had the sidearm he’d carried on him at all times for the last five years.

Since Savoy.

Texas never quite looked the same after that, but neither did a lot of things. Still, he was just a tiny bit grateful they weren’t in Texas when the world fell apart at their feet.

Athos was ghostly pale and hooked up to machines, but they made short work out of those. Aramis quietly muttered thankful Spanish prayers for the fact that Athos wasn’t on life support anymore, just unconscious and weak. Porthos got their wounded leader out the window safely and waited with Athos in a fireman’s carry because it was the only way he could keep some pressure off the healing wound in Athos’ left side and still be able to sprint five blocks. Aramis followed with a rucksack full of stolen medical supplies he’d been collecting for days.

People were screaming, out in front of the hospital, but gunfire silenced the sound. The two marines ran as fast as they could manage. Aramis felt a bullet whiz by his cheek after a distant shout to _stop right there_. 

It was hardly the last close call he’d have.

The relative safety of the car was mid-June-warm and eerily quiet as Aramis settled behind the wheel. Porthos propped a still unconscious Athos against his side in the back seat, checking the bandages for seepage.

“Put your seatbelt on,” he grit out between his teeth, when their eyes met in the rearview and the ache in his friend’s stare made him want to reach out and brush his fingertips across the exposed skin at Aramis’ neck.

“You first,” Aramis countered with a lift of his eyebrows and a perverse amount of patience given the circumstances.

“Together.”

The word did something funny to Aramis’ heart. It did every time they had this “argument” over one ridiculous thing or another, usually because Porthos said _together_ like it was the punchline to a really good, really _dirty_ joke. But this time it was different. This time, it was a promise. 

Whatever happened, it was the three of them _together_. They would be inseparable. 

He couldn’t know he would break that promise later, much later, by no fault of his own.

Aramis nodded, his eyes never leaving the rearview, and he waited to latch his seatbelt until Porthos wove his up under Athos’ back.

The simultaneous click seemed too small for the moment. But it kept him going for awhile, and later still, when things got so much worse than any of them could ever have imagined.

\-----

The first walker they killed was wearing a sheriff’s uniform. It knocked Porthos to the ground, scrambling and snarling and snapping its teeth, raining pieces of God-knows-what down upon his chest. Porthos shoved it upwards with a shaking hand forcefully jammed up under its jaw.

“ _Shield your face_!” Aramis shouted, panicked but still raising his gun with all the steady aim his training instilled. As quickly as Porthos turned his head and closed his eyes, Aramis put a bullet through the walker’s skull and raced over to heave the corpse off of his friend.

“So much for serve and protect,” Porthos growled. 

Aramis lifted his face to the sky and closed his eyes, exhaling loudly. He'd laugh later. Maybe. If the world made sense again and his heart stopped feeling like it was full of dread.

\-----  
.  
“Stop. Fretting.”

Athos was awake and had been for a week, minus the too few hours he slept each day. He still looked pale, and he leaned against the car with a heaviness far beyond his slim build, but he was alive. 

With Atlanta burning in the distance, that was saying a lot.

“Stop looking like you’re going to collapse to the asphalt any second now and I’ll happily stop _fretting_ ,” Aramis sighed. He clasped a hand around the back of Athos’ neck and glanced over his shoulder for Porthos, breathing just a little easier when the trunk lid dropped away and the large Marine was back in his line of sight. 

They had spent a week living in the car and avoiding the highway lined with unmoving traffic aimed for the city. They should’ve been heading for Fort McPherson, but Aramis said they’d be separated, Athos in a hospital bed with no one to protect him. Porthos didn’t need to hear any more after that. Once Athos was healthy enough, they’d find a way to help.

Until then, they stocked up on stolen gas, weaponry, and supplies wherever and whenever they could. None of it was going to last as long as they’d have liked, but there was something to be said for being the kind of men who were used to brutal conditions. 

There was also something to be said for knowing where to look for guns and ammo. 

Aramis had a scoped hunting rifle strapped across his back and a shoulder holster to carry his sidearm. Porthos had a matching holster but it had been jerry-rigged to carry a machete between his shoulder blades. He had a Glock too, but that was in a thigh holster, black-on-black against the faded green of his cargo pants.

He had something held behind him as he stepped around the back of the sedan and stopped next to Aramis.

“He’s up to something,” Athos muttered, still belligerently under the grip of Aramis’ hand, but not stubborn enough to remove himself from the support. Not yet, anyway. 

Porthos grinned. It might have seemed out of place if it weren’t Porthos. Neither of his brothers were going to complain either way, not when that flash of teeth softened the sharp edges of their anxiety. Pulling one arm out from behind him, Porthos dropped a hat onto Aramis’ head.

It was a pinchfront cowboy hat, well-worn and soft, with the rim curved up on each side. It's particular shade of grey suggested it used to be blue, once upon a time, but those days were long gone. Aramis frowned for a second, baffled. But as his hands came up to adjust the way it sat and he caught his reflection in the window of the car, the frown upended into a slow, pleased smile. It suited him. It would suit him even more when months passed and his hair grew out in thick waves underneath the brim.

Lifting his hand to pinch the crown, Aramis tipped the hat at Porthos. “Why, thank ya kindly, mister,” he smirked in a hammed-up drawl. He was rewarded with a laugh so warm that he decided right then and there, he would wear that stupid hat for as long as God was willing.

“Don’t look so constipated, Athos. I’ve got somethin’ for you, too,” Porthos teased, turning towards their friend with an understated flourish of the remaining object hidden behind him. It was a katana. Aramis bit back a smile at the long running joke between them. When Athos got well and truly drunk, which was often, he would sometimes pick up whatever long and thin object he could find and pretend to swordfight. It usually ended with him whacking one of them in the head. Or himself. Or breaking something _inconveniently_ made of glass. But there was an undeniable grace to his movements even in those comically messy moments.

They had no way of knowing Athos used to fence in college, before his life imploded. Before he buried himself in the Corps and the bottle. He wasn’t really a “sharer” after all.

Athos’ mouth was a tight line. But, there was something in his gaze that suggested he was quietly satisfied as he reached out and slung the strap attached to the katana over his shoulder. 

“If you’re both finished being ridiculous, we should get moving,” Athos grumbled, finally slipping out from under Aramis grip to adjust the gun they’d strapped to his hip in a low slung holster when he’d hardly been strong enough to dress himself. They could almost see the pieces falling back into place, the strength they relied on more than either of them cared to admit straightening his spine as he spoke.

It was a start. And the days that followed would see him returned to them as a whole, even as their new world tried to pick them apart limb by limb.

\-----

Athos is on watch. Aramis and Porthos are a tangle of limbs on the ground next to him. Under a starless sky, it’s hard to tell where one man ends and the other begins. Aramis has kept his face buried between the collar of Porthos’ leather jacket and his neck for some time now. Probably to stay as close to that pulse of life in his throat as he possibly can.

Athos keeps his focus on their surroundings, despite the quiet urge to curl himself around them both. They’ve relocated camp to somewhere that’s not littered in dead bodies and he’ll be damned if they’re going to be caught unaware again tonight. 

He’d like to say “ever again”, but he’s learned there are some things he just can’t promise.

Porthos grumbles something in his sleep, his eyes flickering half-open, then wide with fear. He looks behind him first, the arm willingly trapped under Aramis’ weight tightening its hold around his back. But the arm he has flung over the man pressed up against him is mindlessly reaching in the opposite direction and it lands on Athos’ boot.

When their eyes meet in the dark, Athos covers Porthos’ hand with his own and the tension drains out of his friend. Letting a slightly embarrassed smile curl his mouth, Porthos drops his head back to the pack he’s using as an unforgiving pillow.

“We should switch,” he murmurs, squeezing Athos’ boot before drawing his hand back to scratch idly at his jaw. “You need to sleep, too.”

“If you think he’s going to let you detach yourself, you’re more delusional than I thought.” Athos almost looks amused.

Porthos chuckles darkly, his eyes drifting shut of their own accord. His hand drops from his face to smooth over Aramis' shoulder and down his arm. “Maybe another hour. That’s it, though.”

“Not a second more,” Athos agrees, as poker-faced as ever. Without any liquor to grease the wheels, he hardly sleeps at all. They all knows this, but that doesn’t stop the other two from trying. “And you’re on chow duty in the morning.”

A sad smile drifts across Porthos’ face. “Pancakes do alright?” 

“I will settle for nothing less than gourmet french toast and a side of bacon, thank you very much.”

Muffled laughter drifts across the short space between them. “You got it, boss.”

Aramis shifts, rolling out from his self-made cocoon with an exaggerated groan, his hand dragging down over his face. “My God, will you two please stop flirting…it’s embarrassing and I’m trying to get some shuteye here.”

The sound that comes out of Porthos is somewhere between a snort and a strangled giggle and even Athos can’t help but smile. There’s still blood in his beard, but it’s still _not his_. They’re alive. They’re together. They’ll find d’Artagnan and Constance, maybe even Ninon, Anne, Louis, and the others. Treville is still gone for good, and that will leave an emptiness in them forever, but they’ll bear that burden together. 

There’s a tiny swell of hope in Athos’ heart and, for once, he doesn’t stomp it out with callous practicality. Fuck practicality. Fuck foregone conclusions and accepting what this world dishes out.

Tomorrow, they’ll set out for Terminus. And if they don’t find their people, well, then they’ll keep on fucking searching until they do. They’re Marines, after all. 

Semper Fidelis: _Always_ faithful. Until there's nothing left.


End file.
